Work Text:
Beep, beep! Beep! Beep, beep! Beep !
Ochaco reached her hand out to turn off her alarm clock but when she pressed the button, the beeping didn’t stop. She slapped it again, but nothing changed. She groaned as she picked her head off her pillow and looked at the digital clock she had owned since she was 13. It wasn’t on.
She dropped her head back on the pillow and rolled over.
IT WASN’T ON!
She sat up quickly and looked at the clock. At some point after she had gone to sleep it had been unplugged. So what was making that beeping sound? She looked around the room to see the new phone Shoto had bought her vibrating on her desk. She jumped out of bed, stumbling over a few books and shoes she had left scattered on the floor from last night. She picked up the phone. It was Toru Hagakure from her Contemporary Thinking in Astronomy class. She fumbled with the phone trying to slide the green button to answer.
“H-hello?”
“Where are you?!” Ochaco pulled the phone away from her ear as Toru began to yell. “I’ve been waiting at the library since 10 am like we agreed! Like you suggested! Do you know how many times I called you?”
Ochaco looked at her phone to see the time. 12:30. Shit! They were supposed to be working on their class project to determine the age of the universe and the rate of expansion between galaxies. She began tearing through her room trying to get ready as fast as she could and she apologized profusely.
“I am sooooo sorry Toru! I totally overslept! I’ll be right over! It’ll just take me…” she started to calculate about how long it would take her to get to the bus stop and then for the bus to get to her college campus and—
“Don’t bother. I’ve already finished setting up the program and collecting the data. You just need to calculate the velocity and distance of the galaxies and graph it. I’ll work on the PowerPoint.” Ochaco flinched at Toru’s exasperated tone.
“I really am sorry. I’ve just been so busy lately! I’ve been picking up more shifts at work and I just never seem to have enough time in the day.”
“I know.” Toru sighed. “But listen, that's no excuse for being so late! You need to reorganize your schedule! You’re doing too much. You work, do school, are always at home helping out your parents. Seriously, learn how to say no to people or you’ll burn yourself out.”
“I-I...yes you’re right.” She couldn’t deny what was true. On top of working at All Bite Coffeeshop and going to school, she also went home every other weekend to help manage her parents’ construction business. At first, it didn’t seem like a lot but slowly as each thing demanded more and more of her time she started to feel overwhelmed.
With exams coming up and other part-time student employees leaving or getting ready to leave for the summer, she found herself passing out halfway into doing her homework when she got home.
“I promise, I’ll get this done today so we can have the project finished tomorrow.”
“But I thought you said you had plans?”
“This is my main priority, now. I swear.” Ochaco felt her phone vibrate. She looked to see that she had a new email from Toru with the data from the simulation. “Cool, I got the data. I'll start working on this now!”
“Ochaco this isn’t exactly what I meant. You need to—“ But Ochaco had already hung up the phone and started setting up her workspace.
2 hours into the assignment, Ochaco had to take a break. There had to be something she was doing wrong. There was no way the calculations should be this difficult.
She got up from her chair and dug through her bag until she found the instructions for the assignment. But the words no longer made sense in her brain.
“Ugh!” She groaned when the sound of her roommate coming into the apartment could be heard.
“Ochaco! Ochaco!” She looked down at her books and paper and shrugged. While Ochaco had no idea what her roommate could want. Dealing with Mina was better than hurting herself trying to do her homework.
“Yes?”
“Oh good, you’re home! I need your help! Mei is going to be over any minute. We have to clean up!”
“Mei?”
“She’s the cute girl I was talking about the other day! She’s coming over to help fix the toaster.”
“The toaster is broken?”
“Yes, but that’s not important.” Ochaco thought it was very important but she let it go. She needed to finish working on her project. But cleaning up could be a good way to allow her brain to rest. Besides, how long could it possibly take?
It wouldn’t have taken too long but Ochaco and Mina had forgotten about the closet . For the most part, they had kept the small apartment they shared clean. Maybe there was a dish or two left in the sink or jacket left hanging on a chair but that was because anything they didn’t know what to do with or needed to quickly hide went into the closet . Old blankets that were never used. Umbrellas that were mostly broken but if you fiddled with you could probably fix it. Gift bags. Just a bunch of gift bags that neither of them knew what to do with because you never have a gift bag when you need one but you rarely need one. For that same reason they also stored boxes in there just in case they needed to take back anything they had bought or moved or something. They totally needed those boxes.
They also kept the vacuum in there and when Mina went to grab it she pulled just a bit too hard. This caused an avalanche of all of the perfectly packed miscellaneous objects. At first, they tried to just shove everything back in but wouldn’t work.
“Ochaco, I-I think we have to finally do it.”
“No, don't say it! We can make this work.”
“I know we keep putting it off but we can’t anymore. We...have to go through the closet and...and sort everything.”
“But I don’t have time for that today!”
“Don’t worry. If we do it together then I’m sure we can get this cleaned up in no time!”
Mina grinned and patted Ochaco on the back to try and reassure her. However, 20 minutes into arguing about if they should donate the blankets or keep them, Mei was knocking on the door. In a panic, Mina tossed whatever she could back inside. While Ochaco put what was left in her room to be sorted after Mei left.
“Thank you. Thank you. Thank you! She won’t be here long. You can dump it in my room after that.” Mina said, giving her friend a tight hug before running to answer the door.
“Don’t worry about it. Have fun ‘fixing the toaster’,” Ochaco said with a teasing wink as she went inside her room and closed her door.
Ochaco could hear a bit of their muffled conversation through the door but her big concern now was her room. There was a bunch of books scattered on the floor from when she passed out studying last night after coming home late. With empty boxes and a vacuum sitting in the middle of her already small room; there was little space for her.
She took a deep breath, went over to her drawer chest, and grabbed a scrunchie. She pulled her hair into a ponytail and started to get to work tidying up her room as much as she could. She packed the boxes into each other and put away all the books she wasn’t using. She plugged her clock back up and made sure the time on it was right. Lastly, she sat down and went back to work.
After another 2 hours of working, she started to feel like she was on a roll when her phone rang. She grumbled at her sudden loss of concentration.
“Hello?” She said when putting it on speaker as she continued to work.
“Hey, Ochaco! How are you doing?” It was Izuku! She dropped her pencil and took her phone off speaker.
“Oh hey, Deku. What’s going on?” She said cursing herself for not looking to see who was calling.
“Not much. I just wanted to let you know, Shoto and I are on our way to pick you up for movie night. Shoto said to bring your bathing suit since he has a pool and we can watch the movie from the pool if we want.”
“Wait, was that tonight?!” She slumped in her chair and pushed her bangs back. There was no way she could finish all she needed to do tonight and hang out with Shoto and Deku. She hadn’t even begun to work on her homework that was due tomorrow.
“Is right now a bad time? We can reschedule for next week if you need to.”
“Finals are next week.”
“Oh that’s right and Shoto will be gone for two months after that.”
As Ochaco stared up at the ceiling wishing there were two of her, Izuku could be heard in the background talking quietly to Shoto.
“Ochaco, this is Shoto Todoroki speaking.” He said taking the phone from Izuku. “Stay calm, we'll be there in 30 minutes. Continue doing what you were doing.”
“Okay. I’ll see you soon.” After that, he hung up the phone.
Just as he said, 30 minutes later the two of them arrived with pizza, DVDs, and an array of snacks and energy drinks.
“We’re here to help!” Izuku said as the two men came into her apartment.
“But what about movie night?”
“We can help you and then when we’re done we can watch movies. I don’t have work tomorrow and Deku goes in late so it should be fine even if we stay up all night.” Shoto explained as he and Izuku set up.
“You guys don’t have to do this. You can go out together. You don’t need me.”
“Maybe. It’s more fun when it’s the three of us, though. How can we be out having a good time when we know you are stressed. That’s not fair right?” Izuku grinned at her, confidently. “Now where are your books? You said finals are next week. Have you finished that one project you were working on yet? The one about the galaxies and the universe?”
“No, I’m still working on it. The calculations are taking much longer than I thought.” Ochaco smiled despite herself. She felt happy to have such wonderful people in her life. As Izuku and Shoto made themselves comfortable. She grabbed her books, laptop, and notebook.
The rest of the night was spent with Izuku and Shoto both helping her. First, Izuku helped her with her project while Shoto organized the closet . So it was now just a normal, not scary closet. Then both of them helped her study for her chemistry and history classes.
It wasn’t until very late into the evening where they were able to start watching movies but halfway into an old screwball comedy the three of them had all fallen asleep. Towards the end of it, Mina opened the door to her room, dressed in a big and loose shirt. She crept over to the kitchen to get some water. She tried to be quiet but the sound of the refrigerator door closing woke up Ochaco.
“Mina?”
“Shh. Hey there, sleepyhead. Having a good time?” Ochaco looked up to see that she was cuddled under one of the old blankets with Shoto and Izuku. Her head was on one of Shoto’s shoulders and Izuku’s head was on the other. In the middle, Shoto had his arms draped over the both of them.
“See. It’s a good thing we kept the blankets.” Mina said, taking two bottles of water back to her room.
Ochaco smiled to herself and wiggled her deeper under the covers and as close to Shoto as she could get.
“Yeah...lucky me.”